e.+ Group ideals may be types of character.
In the Old Testament the ideal type is the "just man," who conformed to
ritual standards at all points. A Moslem is a man who is "faithful" to
Islam, which is self-surrender to the Omnipotent One.[420] The type of
the perfect man-as-he-should-be in the Mahabharata is one who will give
his all to a Brahmin. The god Siva, disguised as a Brahmin, came to a
hero. He ordered the hero to kill his own son and serve his corpse for
the Brahmin to eat. The hero obeyed at once. The Brahmin set the hero's
buildings on fire, but the latter served the dish without heeding the
fire. The Brahmin ordered him to eat of the dish. He prepared to obey,
but was excused from this trial. He had triumphantly stood the test.
There was nothing he would not do for a Brahmin.[421] The poem also
contains a type of female perfection in person and character,--Savitri.
[422] The Greeks had many standards of personal excellence and social
worth which entered to some extent into their mores. The ideal types
were noble and refined. They have affected the mores of the class
educated in the "humanities" since the Renaissance. They have never been
truly incorporated in the mores of any society. _Olbos_ was wealth, with
grace, opulence, elegance, and generosity, and so wealth when not sordid
or arrogant, the opposite of plutocratic. _Arete_ was capacity,
capability, and practical efficiency,--executive ability. _Aidos_ was
the opposite of "cheek." _Sophrosyne_ was continence, self-control.
_Kalokagathie_ contained notions of economic, aesthetic, and moral good,
fused into a single concept.[423] The _eleutheros_ was the gentleman
endowed with all admirable qualities.[424] The Greeks proved that people
could sink very low while talking very nobly. The ideals were in the
literature, not in the mores. "Their predisposition, their will, and
their fate formed a consistent whole, and their decline was a
consequence of the social and political life which they lived."[425] In
the sixth and seventh centuries A.D. the man-as-he-should-be was
religious,--a hermit or a monk. In any case he was an ascetic. In
Charlemagne's time the preferred type was changed. It became the warrior
and knight, and led up to chivalry. A new poetry flourished to develop
and propagate the new ideal. In mediaeval society there were strongly
defined ideals of the man-as-he-should-be. _Milte_ was generosity of
heart and mind. In the twelfth and thirteenth